Huda Kattan was adamant about starting a profitable business doing what she loved.Therefore, Kattan turned her beauty blog into a billion-dollar cosmetics brand, Huda Beauty, with a $6,000 loan from her sister Alya.
Kattan, now 37, received a finance degree from the University of Michigan in 2008 and relocated to Dubai to be with family. She got a job recruiting, but a year later, during the recession, she lost it, leaving her without a job. She took this as an opportunity and decided to focus on a career that she genuinely love. In 2010, she established the Huda Beauty instagram account after returning to Dubai from makeup school in Los Angeles. Kattan began to attract a following that appreciated her candid personality and makeup tutorials. She took a chance and launched a false eyelash line in 2013 with her two sisters, Mona, who is now 36 years old, and Alya, who is 48 years old. They agreed to lend Kattan the $6,000 she needed to make the product so that she could make money off of her growing following.
“I’ve always been extremely passionate and the type of person who loves sharing information! When I first started my career in beauty I was working as a makeup artist which I absolutely loved but I still felt like something was missing. I wanted to help others by sharing the tricks I had learned and acknowledge all of the incredible talented makeup artists, photographers and models in the industry. I knew that beauty sometimes felt a bit unattainable and cold and I really wanted to change that. Ultimately, Hudabeauty.com became a place for people to feel beautiful and comfortable, and to share their own inspiration and thoughts around beauty.” said Huda
Her lashes were praised by celebrities like Kim Kardashian West, and in 2013, the line was purchased by Sephora Dubai. At the time, Sephora Dubai anticipated selling 7,000 of the lashes over the course of a year; however, all 7,000 were sold within a week. Forbes reports that retail sales reached $10 million the following year and $1.5 million that year. Huda was determined to expand her brand internationally from that point on; in 2015, Huda Beauty launched in the United States and continued to grow. Because of Huda’s previous work in the beauty industry, she was able to expand the product line to include liquid lipsticks, lip contour pencils, textured eyeshadow palettes, and complexion products, all of which quickly became international bestsellers.
According to PitchBook, Kattan sold TSG Consumer Partners an undisclosed minority stake in the business in 2017 for $1.25 billion. As for 2020, Kattan is one of America’s Richest Self-Made Women in 2020 and has a net worth of $510 million as of that date. Forbes estimates that Huda Beauty will have annual sales of at least $250 million.
